Rodolphe Gasché is Eugenio Donato Professor of Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

A formidable book… [A] splendidly full and orderly synthesis of Derrida’s thought, which makes a meticulous case for him as a philosopher of real substance, given the radical nature of his investigations in the philosophies of language and of meaning.

• Introduction PART 1: TOWARD THE LIMITS OF REFLECTION 1. Defining Reflection 2. The Philosophy of Reflection 3. The Self-Destruction of Reflection Isolated Reflection Philosophical Reflection Speculative or Absolute Reflection 4. Identity, Totality, and Mystic Rapture 5. Post-Hegelian Criticism of Reflexivity 6. Beyond Reflection: The Interlacings of Heterology PART 2: ON DECONSTRUCTION 7. Abbau, Destruktion, Deconstruction 8. Deconstructive Methodology The Propaedeutics of Deconstruction Against Neutrality Infrastructural Accounting The Marginal Inscription of the Ground The Bipartite Operation of Deconstruction 9. A System beyond Being The Infrastructural Chain The General Theory of Doubling The General System PART 3: LITERATURE OR PHILOSOPHY? 10. Literature in Parentheses 11. The Inscription of Universality Writing Text Metaphor Notes Bibliography Index